The iPhone Duo hype vortex is sweeping me up just as violently as I imagined, but it wouldn’t be fiscally responsible of me not to ruminate about the real reasons to buy one before opening the wallet. Its launch feels like another pivotal moment for Apple that I want to witness from the front seat, especially with a new CEO, John Ternus, driving the bus.
I felt similarly when Apple Intelligence arrived, starting with the iPhone 16. My iPhone 12 Pro Max was on its last legs, and the 16’s camera improvements were substantial enough to affect my workflow in a way that would evolve with me over time, so I instantly decided to buy one. Another motivator was seeing Apple’s first crack at an AI-driven ecosystem. What we eventually got was more disappointing than even my overly skeptical self could imagine.
That fumble keeps me guarded and grounded, and as bad as I want one, I probably won’t jump off the porch for the iPhone Duo too soon. There’s a lot that I like, and if I had disposable cash, it’d probably be a no-brainer. Let me expound on those good notes before I disqualify it.
Why I want
I can leave my iPad home for good. There are three reasons I always go for a Pro Max model, and the screen size is one of them (battery life and cameras are the other). I love big screens, especially for photo and video editing, but also gaming and watching videos. I usually have an iPad for that, but with Apple Pencil support coming, it’d be nice to have a full-blown creative device that slides comfortably into my pocket.
The 5.4-inch OLED, 1.4:1 aspect ratio cover screen is smaller than I’m used to, but I have daydreamed about retiring the one-handed shimmy technique I’ve developed to reach certain UI elements with my thumb. It’s become natural with muscle memory, sure, but I like that I can now have the best of both worlds. The 7.6-inch inner display — also OLED and 1.4:1, but with a matte nanotexture finish — perhaps swings the pendulum a bit too far for your average iPhone owner, but as a power user, it excites me.
Multitasking on iPhones doesn’t completely suck anymore. Apple’s multitasking on the iPhone Duo has potential. Like the iPad, you can now use two apps simultaneously on the inner display in portrait mode. You can’t stack additional windows on top of that, but it’s a far sight better than thumbing through your recent apps — if the device decides not to flush your cache too early and force a destructive refresh, that is. Early demos suggest you can’t resize the windows, which is a downer, but it’s encouraging to see you can seamlessly move text and images from one app to another. If Apple keeps building on the Duo’s multitasking potential, it could be a power user’s dream.
Foldables make me feel bubbly about smartphones again. I’d long grown bored of the product category because innovation felt stagnant. That’s no longer the case. Device makers are experimenting again, and foldables are stirring up the same curiosity in me that started my smartphone obsession many moons ago. The iPhone Duo isn’t the first foldable and does nothing extraordinary, but it’s the first one that actually feels cohesive.
Why I won’t
I don’t buy first-gen tech. Life pro tip: let the wealthy and adventurous among us work out the quirks and kinks, then arrive fashionably late to the party. Don’t get me wrong, Apple is usually ace, but the company isn’t immune to crash waves when embarking on new territory. For example, when the first-generation M-series MacBooks debuted, there were myriad bugs and app compatibility issues, the latter mostly because developers needed time to catch up. This is natural in the ebb and flow of any new product launch. Apple is usually quick to fix issues within the lifecycle before the next generation arrives, but I’d rather wait than gamble.
The price isn’t right. I’m nowhere near rich, and I’ve never pretended to be. At $2,000 for the starting 256GB model in an unsure economy, it’s a hard sell for me, especially when I could pay about that much for a brand-new MacBook Pro. It’d be a little more forgivable without harsh concessions like losing the super-telephoto camera that I’ve grown accustomed to on base iPhone Pro models. I’d also want Face ID and, for good measure, a Mac OS mode that triggers when docking to a screen. The pricing is right in line with the Galaxy Z Fold 8, just $100 more, so it’s not exactly an Apple tax. But I don’t want to pay more for a lesser experience.
I need to see how long-term durability unfolds. Widespread quality control issues scared me off early foldables, vindicating my no-first-gen policy. I’m sure Apple, in partnership with Samsung (who is undoubtedly supplying the display tech for the iPhone Duo), has made strides in this department. But as with software, Apple’s hardware engineering isn’t always infallible to the realities of physics. The stakes are especially high on a device that literally hinges on the success of its build quality. To that end, the Apple Duo has a lightweight, thin titanium frame, while the underlying hinge is a titanium-aluminum composite, all supported by carbon fiber frames. I’m not going to pretend to know how that will translate to maintaining its stiffness and integrity over time, but it sounds nice (and looks pretty, based on the photos Apple shared).